


American Apparel Underwear

by Hisa_Ai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cute, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Modern Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1598246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisa_Ai/pseuds/Hisa_Ai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is <em>just fine</em> with the way his relationship with Merlin is, thank you very much. He's fine being flatmates, fine being friends—occasionally. So why does Merlin have to ruin it by looking so very attractive in nothing but a pair of Arthur's boxers? Why does he have to ruin the way Arthur looks at him, the way he thinks about him? Why does Merlin have to <em>ruin things?</em></p>
<p>"You... have a fetish." Morgana said slowly.</p>
<p>"Yes, I am aware of that." Arthur said briskly. And then, "—You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	American Apparel Underwear

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm pretty obsessed with that 5 Seconds Of Summer song "She Looks So Perfect." And I was listening to it on repeat the other day and started thinking about Merthur, and the bit in the chorus that's like, "You look so perfect standing there in my American Apparel underwear," sort of jumped out at me and, _yeah._ I am so in love with that song right now and I am so in love with Merthur always, that I just sort of took that combination and... ran with it.
> 
> So this is just meant to be a bit of fun and not much else. Like, this was just _a lot_ of fun to write, okay? So just... read it and tell me if you loved reading it as much as I loved writing it.

* * *

 

  
*

  
They were reluctant flatmates and nothing more. Arthur's father had cut him off one semester—something about doing it to Morgana when she was around the same age as punishment for a bad grade and wouldn't you know it it helped her find her own way in the world. Or some bullshit like that—and he'd needed a flatmate to help make rent, Merlin had been the only candidate he'd interviewed who seemed to resemble even something that looked like the third cousin of some adjective that was in the ballpark of  _normal._

  
And only  _just._

  
Still, his rent check had cleared, he wasn't particularly messy, and he didn't mind washing Arthur's dishes from time to time when he couldn't be bothered with it himself, so Arthur didn't mind having him as a flatmate for as long as he needed to be. After a few months of living together, Arthur and Merlin were something like  _friends_ , if friends insulted each other for a solid five minutes and then helped one another cram for some test or another for the next three. And  _their_  friends liked the other's friends, so their social circles began to overlap as well—which was fine; Merlin's friends were all a touch more normal than he was anyway, so Arthur didn't much mind their company.

  
Really, though, if Arthur had been asked to describe his relationship with Merlin Emrys, he would have said they were flatmates and nothing more. Even after the semester ended and Arthur's father returned access to his money to him and he decided he didn't mind Merlin's company so much that he decided he could stay his flatmate for as long as he wanted to—and that had been two years ago, almost—and he had even cut his rent down, as a show that he didn't hate him as much as he sometimes claimed he did. They were still only flatmates, though.

  
Flatmates who, apparently, wore each other's underwear from time to time.

  
But still. Flat mates. Little more.

  
*

  
It had started like this: the pair of them had decided it would be easier if just  _one_  of them took all the dirty laundry down to the wash once a week, because it would save energy or time or something, Arthur had only been half sober when they made the agreement, so the details were rather fuzzy when he pushed the memory too far.

  
Anyway, they were to take turns with it. Arthur would wash his  _and_  Merlin's things one week, the next Merlin would do it. And it was a  _good_  system, too, if Arthur did say so himself. Occasionally, sure, there was a mix-up or two: Arthur would forget if this shirt was his or Merlin's, or Merlin would forget if that towel was his or Arthur's or if those jeans were Arthur's or one of his idiot friends', because his friends were constantly leaving their clothes over, for some insane reason he had learned early on not to question. And it was all fine and good, the clothes would be returned to their original owner sometime over the course of the week and all was forgotten.

  
Right.

  
Until one week when it was Arthur's turn to do the wash.

  
He didn't quite remember if he'd been distracted by the phone he was holding between his ear and shoulder, his sister bitching into his ear about something or another, or the football game playing on the television screen up in the corner, or maybe it had been that cute girl who kept trying to grab his attention from three dryers down, but, whatever it had been, he had been distracted and wound up throwing his underwear into Merlin's laundry bag and Merlin's underwear into his own laundry bag without noticing. He had taken the bags back to their flat, threw Merlin's into his room, threw his own into his own room, and forgotten all about it.

  
Until the next morning, when Merlin yelled for him. Merlin was always yelling about something or another, of course, so Arthur chose to ignore him in favor of the delicious cereal he was eating at the time. Just a couple minutes later, Merlin came stalking into the kitchen, still half wet and only in his—no wait, those were  _Arthur's_ boxers. He recognized the design and everything.

  
"Why the hell are you wearing—"

  
"Because," Merlin interrupted with a sharp look. "It's all I have. You must have mixed up our underwear, and when I yelled for you to bring me  _mine_ , you ignored me. So. Unless this is going to be some sort of weird new flatmate thing where we share our underwear, I suggest..." He gave Arthur another of his  _looks_ as he trailed off meaningfully.

  
Arthur rolled his eyes and ducked his blushing head as he pushed back from the table and walked past Merlin to correct the mix-up.

  
"You can keep those." He grumbled as he walked past him.

  
Later on, when he was stepping into a pair of boxers that looked eerily similar to the pair Merlin had walked into the kitchen wearing that morning, Arthur reflected, very briefly, on the fact that Merlin had actually looked pretty fucking good in Arthur's boxers. Like, it wasn't even the color or the design or anything, it was just... knowing they were  _Arthur's_ and that  _Merlin_  was wearing them... It had pushed a button in him that he hadn't even known existed before then, it almost turned him  _on_  at the very thought of it. _  
_

  
Honestly, they were only flatmates. One of them just so happened to look sexy as all hell wearing the other's underwear.

  
*

  
That had been how it all started, and Arthur was only a little ashamed to admit that he thought of that moment in the kitchen often. Thought of Merlin wearing his underwear  _knowing_  it was Arthur's. Saw the image of him in that pair of underwear and nothing else. Pictured him in other pairs of his underwear. Imaged him  _slowly_  stepping out of them or, even better, slipping them on the morning after a rough night of—

  
Okay, so,  _maybe_  it was a bit of a problem for Arthur. It was making it hard for him to be around Merlin, honestly, and since they were flatmates and sort of friends... Well. That didn't really work out too well, obviously.

  
So, after a few weeks of that image haunting his every god damn thought, he decided he should probably talk to someone about it. Like a friend. Like a friend who was more loyal to  _him_  than Merlin and wasn't likely to tell him about this, which, actually was a smaller number than Arthur thought it would be, as every one of his god damn friends  _loved_  Merlin.

  
Traitors.

  
*

  
"Are you...  _really_  asking me if it's normal to be turned on by one of your friends wearing your boxers?" Leon asked, an amused look on his face as he clearly tried not to laugh at his friend.

  
Arthur had a sinking, regretful sort of feeling about telling Leon about this at all, but it was too late now to do anything about it, he had already gone into all the details and everything. God damn, Leon was supposed to be  _his_  friend, he was supposed to  _be there_  for him, not laugh at him, though he supposed that was what  _being there_  for him meant—in their friendship, at least.

  
" _Yes."_ He groaned, taking a swig of his beer as Leon grinned at him knowingly, a sly look on his face that Arthur didn't like one god damn bit.

  
"Well if it helps any," Gwaine said, leaning casually in the doorway, gripping a beer bottle by the neck. " _I_  think it's pretty normal to get turned on by that image."

  
"It doesn't, thanks." Arthur said, rolling his eyes. It was well-known that Gwaine would sleep with anything with a heartbeat, that just  _breathing_ on him turned him on sometimes. "And what the hell are you even doing here?" He asked as Gwaine walked into the room and took up the end of the couch opposite Leon; Arthur sitting, leaning forward slightly, on a chair off to the side.

  
"I  _was_  hanging out with Merlin," He said, nodding in the direction of his room. "But he's working on some philosophy paper and told me to get the hell out until he was done. So I thought I'd come see what you were up to and, well, it's interesting enough that I think I'll stick around for a little while. Continue." He waved a hand nonchalantly in Arthur's direction, leaning back on the couch.

  
Arthur glared at him, hoping he'd take the hint and get out. But then again, when did  _Gwaine_  ever take a hint?

  
After a moment longer of intense glaring, Gwaine rolled his eyes. "I already knew the story, anyway, princess; Merlin told me."

_  
"He told you?"_ Arthur sputtered. It hadn't exactly been a  _secret_  or anything, but... He just didn't think Merlin was likely to go around telling everyone about it.

  
"Yeah. I saw the band of those boxers sticking out of his jeans, like, ten minutes ago, and asked him about it. They're not his usual brand, so I was curious."

  
Arthur chewed this information over for a moment, deciding to ignore the fact that Gwaine knew enough about Merlin's underwear drawer to know when he was wearing a pair that weren't originally his in the first place, to focus, instead, on the fact that Merlin was  _wearing them. His_  underwear. The pair that  _Arthur_  had given him. And it wasn't like he was out of clean pairs of his own—as he'd just done the wash two days ago—he had  _actively chosen_  to wear that pair, ignoring his own for the pair  _Arthur_  had given him.

  
Jesus, did that turn him on.

  
He shifted slightly in his seat, trying to hide his semi for his own sake, though he knew both Leon and Gwaine knew what he was doing when they smiled wryly at each other.

  
"What the hell are you doing talking to Leon about this, anyway?" Gwaine asked instead of poking fun at him, thank God. "He's the straightest man this side of the city—I say that with all the love in the world, of course." He winked at Leon, who merely shook his head with a lithe little chuckle.

  
"Be that as it may, he's still my best friend, and I thought I could talk to him about this."

  
"And how's that working out for you, exactly?"

  
"It'd be going better if you would  _leave."_

  
"Fine, I'll leave." Gwaine half-rose, still clutching his beer by the neck. "But, just know, if I do, I'll end up back by Merlin, and then I'll start talking to distract him from his paper, and well, this is the sort of thing that might slip out."

  
"You're a filthy bastard, you know that?" Arthur asked, narrowing his eyes, somehow in utter disbelief that Gwaine would blackmail him like that.

  
Gwaine chuckled in response, and took that as his invitation to stay; he sank back down to the couch and kicked up his feet on the table in front of them.

  
"Yeah, but at least  _I'm_  not the one getting hard-ons every time I think about my roommate wearing my pants—you're thinking about him right now, aren't you?"

  
" _Shut up."_ Arthur hissed, his face heating up as Leon and Gwaine both laughed at him.

  
In retrospect, the whole talking to someone about it thing  _probably_  hadn't been his best idea in the world, but he had been desperate. And, anyway, how the hell was  _he_  supposed to know that Gwaine would be there? Would spend the rest of the afternoon poking fun at him for it, even roping Leon into the teasing at some point?

  
Yeah, okay;  _maybe_  it was one of his worst ideas to date, actually.

  
*

  
So that had been him trying to talk to one of his friends about it and getting Gwaine and his perverted, non-helpful comments instead of advice or looks of sympathy and an offer to come play rugby or football or whatever with his best mate.

  
And it hadn't even  _helped._ If anything, it had just made things  _worse,_ because now Gwaine had that kind of dirt on him and he could use it against him at any time. Leon probably wouldn't do that to him, but Gwaine just might, so he decided, after the pair of them left him to his own devices, that he should find a way to sort this whole mess out before he got the  _chance_  to use said information against him.

  
Looking back on his decisions months,  _years,_  after the fact, Arthur decided he was a god damn idiot for not just going to Merlin to... He wasn't sure, proposition him for sex or something, just to get it out of his system and nip it in the bud before things could get even worse than they already were, before he could go from just wanting to bone him to wanting to spend the rest of his life with him.

  
Jesus, he was a god damn mess, wasn't he?

  
*

  
The next time it was Arthur's turn to do laundry, he pretty much lost his mind when he started separating the underwear, throwing Merlin's into his bag and his into his own. He looked at his boxers and imagined what Merlin would look like in this pair or that and, what was worse yet, he looked at a pair of _Merlin's_  and imagined what  _he_  would look like in them. Blushing in a way Arthur Pendragon  _did not_ , he shoved a pair of Merlin's into his bag and a pair of his own into Merlin's. These little mix-ups happened all the time, after all, so, some time later in the week, he would just be able to causally brush it off as another one of those.

  
He almost couldn't be bothered to wonder what was wrong with him or if this was some sort of fetish or something as he did it, but, once he was back up in their flat and threw Merlin's bag of laundry at him, walked off to his own room with what he had done, he thought about it.

  
And he thought about it through-out the rest of the night, left his clothes in his laundry bag just so he wouldn't be faced with proof of what he'd done because  _Jesus_  was it stupid and embarrassing and if anyone ever found out he'd done it  _on purpose_ , he would... probably flee the country. At the very least.

  
*

  
It wasn't until three days later that he began to forget about the incident, and it wasn't until three days later that Merlin, ignorantly enough, brought it up.

  
Arthur was in his room, trying to finish a paper for his econ class when Merlin threw the door open, knocking on the door frame as he passed it. Arthur looked up from his work, glad for the distraction as he leaned back in his desk chair, and cracked his knuckles as he watched Merlin approach him, trying desperately not to imagine what sort of underwear he was wearing at the moment under his dark jeans. He quirked an eyebrow as his flatmate shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on the balls of his bare feet.

  
"I'm going to ask you something," He began slowly, a shadow of a blush taking over his face and making Arthur's heart stutter nervously, wondering what could  _possibly_  have  _Merlin_  so nervous all of a sudden. "And I don't want you to laugh or anything, all right?"

  
"All right." Arthur agreed slowly. Under normal circumstances, Arthur would never have made such a promise, would have listened greedily to whatever Merlin had to say and then tease him relentlessly about it for  _months_ , but, well, here he was with a god damn underwear fetish or kink or  _whatever_ , so he didn't have much room to talk. Whatever Merlin was about to say to him, it couldn't have been any worse than what was going on inside  _Arthur's_  head.

  
"Right," Merlin nodded, obviously surprised at the ease with which Arthur had agreed to such a thing. "So. You did the laundry this week." He said, pausing for Arthur to nod in confirmation, which he did, with something hot and heavy in the pit of his stomach because oh God, did he  _know_  what Arthur had done? Did he  _know_  he had done it on purpose? No. Why would he have reason to suspect something like that? Unless _—no,_  Gwaine would have told him, taunted him, if he had gone to Merlin with something like that. What else could he want, though? That had to do with the wash, at any rate?

  
"I was wondering... if you happened to see..." He trailed off, making a sort of face at the ceiling before looking back down at Arthur's questioning face. "My... luckyunderwear." He finished in a rush.

  
Arthur blinked at him.

  
What.

  
"Your...  _what?"_

  
"My lucky underwear, all right?" Merlin repeated, exasperated and embarrassed at once. "Have you seen them? You did the wash and I can't find them in my bag so..."

  
"You have a pair of  _lucky_  underwear?" Arthur asked, too caught on that bit to register anything else.

  
" _Yes."_ Merlin hissed. "Have you seen them or haven't you?"

  
Arthur shrugged. "What the hell do they even look—"

  
"They're checkered. Warm blue and black. Did you mix them up with yours on accident or something?"

  
"Boxers or briefs?" Arthur asked, only a  _little_  condescending.

  
" _Arthur..."_

  
"What? How am I supposed to know if I've seen them or not if I don't even know what they look like?" He asked innocently enough, and how could Merlin know that his true intentions were anything  _but?_

  
"Jesus Christ, Pendragon..." Merlin gave him a stern, patented  _Merlin look_  for a moment before Arthur gave in and shrugged again, leaned forward in his chair and focused on his work in front of him.

  
"You can check if you want, I forgot to put my clothes away after I did the wash, so they might be in there." He waved him off towards the corner of the room where his red laundry bag was sitting, still half-full of clothes he probably should have put away already, but had not, for obvious reasons.

  
Merlin mumbled something and crossed the room, dug through the bag for a moment before yanking the article of clothing out of the bag and closing it.

  
"Found them." He declared, walking back across the room in relative silence.

  
Arthur turned away from his computer the moment Merlin reached the door and said, "Merlin?"

  
"What?" Merlin asked, freezing and turning to look at Arthur over his shoulder.

  
"What exactly is it that makes them so  _lucky?"_

  
Merlin's face lit up in a wondrous shade of pink that reached the tips of his ears before he broke out into a grin. "Wouldn't  _you_  like to know." He said, and then he turned back around and left the room, no other words exchanged between the pair of them after he did so. Fortunately for Arthur, he happened to catch a glimpse of these so-called  _lucky_ underwear. He didn't quite know what he was going to do with that information, but...

  
*

  
The only upside to their little "lucky underwear" exchange—other than the obvious—was the fact that Arthur's theory was confirmed: if Arthur just so happened to mix up a pair or two, Merlin would just assume it was an accident, which was actually pretty useful to know for  _other_  obvious reasons.

  
And he was so caught up in all that,  _plus_  the econ paper due at the end of the week, that he never noticed when Merlin didn't return the pair of his boxers that he had slipped into  _Merlin's_ clean clothes that week.

  
*

  
A few weeks passed without another underwear incident—Arthur wasn't  _stupid_ , if he tried pulling that "accidental" mix-up too often, it would become suspect, and Merlin was  _sure_  to notice—and once again it was Arthur's turn to do the laundry. And, once again, when he was sorting out the clothes into the separate bags, he came to their underwear, giving pause to Merlin's in particular, because he had never actually tried on that last pair he purposefully "accidentally" put in his own bag and, as long as it wasn't his  _lucky_  pair, Arthur doubted Merlin would notice right away and it had been a few weeks anyway, and another mix-up was likely to happen—especially this late into the semester when stress and deadlines were  _everywhere._

  
"You're still caught up on all that, then?" Gwaine asked, sidling up to Arthur as he threw a pair angrily into a bag, not bothering to check to be sure he was getting it right.

  
"What are you—"

  
"Washing my clothes, obviously." Gwaine interrupted, nodding to the basket of dirty laundry he was balancing in his arms.

  
"Since when do you wash your own clothes? I thought Percy did that for you."

  
"He's sick, so I'm stuck doing it." He shrugged and turned to the washers that were lined up just behind Arthur and across from the dryers—it was a relatively small room packed with as many appliances as possible, which  _did not_  make for enjoyable laundry washing experiences.

  
"Now how the  _hell_ —" Arthur rolled his eyes and came up behind Gwaine, took over the process of readying the machine and then dumped the basket of clothes into it, jammed in a few coins, and then started it. He knew he'd just wind up doing it anyway, so he decided to cut out the part where Gwaine asked five-thousand questions beforehand and spare himself the headache.

  
For everything Gwaine knew—and  _pretended_  to know—he didn't even know how to do his own god damned laundry, and his flatmate, Percival, got stuck with it under normal circumstances. In return, Gwaine usually did...  _something._  Arthur wasn't sure  _what_ , as they'd never disclosed that bit of information, but Arthur had oft suspected it was probably something sexual—word around the hall was that Gwaine gave pretty great blowjobs, so it was possible...

  
"Thank you. Now, you still caught up on..." Gwaine turned around, gestured to the clothes Arthur had just been sorting through.

  
"Still caught up on  _what?"_  Arthur asked, trying to feign innocence as he went back to said sorting, trying to hide his blush because he knew  _damn well_  what Gwaine was talking about, and they both knew it.

  
"If I say it, you'll ban me from your flat again. But..." He shrugged, nodding down at the pair of checkered boxers in his hands—Merlin's supposed  _lucky_ ones. Jesus, who even had  _lucky_ underwear?

  
Arthur groaned in response and finished the sorting in a state of half anger and frustration.

  
"Why don't you just talk to him about it?" Gwaine suggested, yanking Merlin's bag of laundry off the dryer once it was full and closed.

  
"Oh yeah," Arthur snorted, making for the door with Gwaine hot on his heels. "How would that work, exactly? I just walk up to him and say, "Merlin, ever since I saw you in my underwear I haven't been able to stop thinking about how sexy you look in them—and  _Jesus,_  would you be willing to just walk around in them all the time and maybe have sex with me a few times?" Because if someone said that to  _me,"_ He threw a sharp look to Gwaine over his shoulder. "I might actually consider running one of us through with a steak knife."

  
"What if  _Merlin_  said it to you?" Gwaine teased, obviously unfazed by all Arthur had just said.

  
Arthur sputtered out a half-answer, face flushing at the implications, of what there was  _no way_ he was actually suggesting. Because Arthur might have had some weird fucking fetish that might have accidentally spiraled into the beginnings of a crush—and while Merlin just barely seemed to resemble even something that looked like the third cousin of some adjective that was in the ballpark of  _normal—_ there was  _no way_  anything resembling that mess of a sentence would ever leave his mouth.

  
None at all.

  
*

  
So Gwaine still wasn't dropping it. And Arthur hadn't done anything about it yet. And every day that passed was another opportunity for Gwaine to tell someone—or Merlin himself—about it or tease him about it  _more_. It was just...

  
Such a god damn mess.

  
*

  
This time, though, with the "accidental" mix-up, Arthur put his clothes away right away and sat Merlin's pair aside—out of sight, obviously, but still off to the side. He didn't know what he was going to do with them—though he knew the answer was  _put them on_  at some point or another—but he kept them off to the side and out of sight for a couple of days until Merlin told him he'd be gone the whole afternoon one day; he had to get to the library to do some research for a paper he was writing and was only mentioning it to Arthur because he had a habit of leaving things on or running on the chance that Merlin would wander into the room and turn it off, so he needed to  _not_  leave the stove or water on until Merlin returned later that evening.

  
Arthur, of course, only really heard half of what he was saying and really, it didn't click that he had the whole flat to himself until an hour after Merlin had gone and then—oh,  _then_  he knew it was his chance. The entire time he was walking from the couch to his bedroom, kicking off his jeans once he was safely tucked away in his room and then the pale pair of boxer briefs he'd had on, he thought to himself how  _insane_  he was being. How  _incredibly fucking insane_  he was being. Even as he tugged on the pair of briefs he'd pilfered from Merlin's laundry, which would have been snug enough due to being briefs, but, when coupled with the fact that Merlin was  _smaller_ around the waist than Arthur was... Well, it was a tight fit, that was for sure. And yet.

  
And fucking  _yet._

  
"Well, there is  _clearly_  something I've missed here." A voice from the doorway sent a sliver of ice through Arthur's very  _being,_  and his hands flew to cover his crotch but—too late. From the smirk on his sister's face, he knew she had seen, knew she would know every dirty little detail by the time she left his flat that evening.

  
Somehow, Merlin catching him in such a state would have been so much better

  
*

  
"You... have a fetish." Morgana said slowly, having finally coaxed every last detail of his descent into madness out of him over a late lunch of cold pizza and tea—after he had put his own clothes back on and washed all the shame he could off his face, which meant he had pretty much scrubbed it raw for a good ten minutes before he felt comfortable enough to face her and her cat-like, Cheshire grin.

_  
Jesus._

  
"Yes, I am aware of that." He said briskly. And then, "—You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"

  
"Yes, Arthur," She snorted, clearly displeased with the question. "I'm going to tell  _everyone_  I know that my baby brother has a fetish involving his flatmate and their undergarments—could you image what Daddy would say if—" And then she had promptly dissolved into a fit of laughter that lasted, by Arthur's count, for a good ten minutes at least.

  
"I'm  _serious,_  Morgana."

  
"So am I." She managed when she finally composed herself. "Trust me, Arthur, I would just as soon forget what I saw here if I didn't think you needed help."

  
"I already talked to Leon and Gwaine and there is no way—"

  
"Oh those idiots were never going to be any help and you know it."

  
"So what do  _you_  suggest, then?"

  
"Tell him."

  
"See, that is  _exactly_  what they said and it was anything  _but_  helpful! I won't  _tell him,_ Morgana!"

  
"Why not?"

  
"Because it's fucking  _weird."_

  
"Wouldn't it be weirder for him to walk in on you like I did?"

  
"No. That would be  _less weird_ , because at least  _then_  I would have a way to explain it to him."

  
"So then what's your plan, exactly? Keep stealing his briefs and hoping he doesn't catch you wanking all over them?"

  
"I  _did_  not—I  _would_  not—"

  
Morgana gave him an impatient,  _knowing_  look then and let the subject drop so they could finish their lunch in peace.

  
She never did tell him why the hell she had just let herself into his flat like that, but, since she now knew what she did about him... Well, he decided it would be for the best if he didn't push her. Because she might not have wanted people to know what he was doing, but she was not above informing  _Merlin_  of this herself, if Arthur pissed her off too much. Which made that  _two_  people he now had to stay on the good side of: Gwaine, and Morgana.

  
His life was becoming  _impossible._

  
*

  
He returned Merlin's briefs later in the week and said little on the subject. And if Merlin cared enough to wonder anything about it, he didn't voiice any of those questions, just raised an eyebrow at him and then went back to whatever it was he was doing without another word to Arthur about it. Which Arthur was oh-so-very  _grateful_ for.

  
*

  
Arthur would have  _liked_  to be able to say that, after Morgana caught him... doing what he had been doing, he had toned it down, but...  _Well._

  
He still did the laundry every other week, and every month or so, still had "accidental" little mix-ups. It was just lucky for him that Merlin still happened to mix up their shirts and jeans sometimes, otherwise it would be extremely suspect—Actually, if Merlin had put any sort of thought into it whatsoever, it would have been suspect anyway, but for some reason he didn't seem to catch on. So Arthur could go on with his awkward, embarrassing little existence in relative peace.

  
Occasionally, he wondered when Merlin might be wearing Arthur's boxers—every once in a very blue moon, he saw the band sticking out of his jeans and it sent a thrill through him, something possessive and primal that would have freaked him out a bit if it didn't turn him on so god damn much.

  
Long-term, he didn't know  _what_  his plan was, but, short-term, he was pretty sure a wanking session was  _definitely_  in the cards.

  
*

  
Merlin had just done the wash—Arthur had watched him come in and out with it just the day before—so where the hell were all his god damn boxers? He dumped the contents of his laundry bag onto his bed and sifted through it. Jeans, shirts, socks, jackets—and a sole pair of Merlin's boxers—his  _lucky_  pair, if Arthur recalled correctly. What the  _hell._

  
He slipped them on, and stalked out of the room and across the hall to Merlin's, sure this was a prank or something of the sort as he threw the door open and found Merlin still in bed, curled up under his blankets and looking rather peaceful.

  
Well. Arthur certainly couldn't have  _that_  while he was on the war path, so he walked over and yanked Merlin's blanket off of him, causing him to scowl at the sudden coolness of the room. All of Arthur's blood rushed from his face when he saw what Merlin was wearing. Namely, Arthur's boxers. And  _not_  that pair he had given him that morning in the kitchen so long ago that had started all of this.  _No._  It was a pair that Arthur wore quite often himself. And why the  _hell_ —

  
"What do you  _want?"_ Merlin grumbled, squinting up at Arthur.

  
Arthur swallowed before answering. "Where the hell are my boxers?"

  
"Are you wearing them?" Merlin asked, still groggy with sleep.

_  
"No._  These are yours—your  _lucky_  ones—they were the only ones in with my clothes, so where the hell—"

  
"Shut up, I'm trying to sleep."

  
"Not anymore."

  
" _Arthur."_

_  
"Merlin."_

  
"Jesus." Merlin hissed, sitting up at last. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and then ran a hand through his hair, slowly coming to his senses as Arthur watched his for a moment, wondering when the hell he had started sleeping in just his underwear and not the pajamas Arthur recalled washing all the bloody time.

  
"Now  _what_  is so important—"

  
Arthur cut him off with a sharp look and gestured down to his lower half, all the communication he thought he would need.

  
"Those are mine." Merlin said simply.

  
" _Yes_ , I am aware."

  
"So why are you wearing them?"

  
"Why are  _you_  wearing  _mine?"_ He asked, trying to sound even half as exasperated as he probably should have.

  
And then Merlin said something that might have made him absolutely  _pissed_  at Gwaine and Morgana—maybe Leon, too, he wasn't too sure in the moment—if it didn't make him absolutely  _lunge_  at Merlin and the sexy, come-hither way he said it.

  
"I thought you found it  _sexy?"_

  
*

  
" _Who. Told. You._ " Arthur demanded over breakfast, punctuating each word a sharp tap of his spoon against his cup of tea.

  
Merlin grinned at him, his lips still pleasantly plump and delicious from where they had been kissing—probably a bit too roughly, but—not too long ago.

  
"All of them." He admitted, a smug sort of smile on his face.

  
" _All of them?"_  Arthur repeated, his jaw dropping slightly. He had expected maybe Gwaine  _or_  Morgana to say something, but... All of them doing it seemed a  _bit_  excessive.

  
"All of them." Merlin nodded. "Gwaine first, if that makes you feel any better. The first day you told him. And then Leon about two months later—it wasn't entirely  _his_  fault, though, he was half-drunk and we were playing truth-or-dare, and, well, he picked truth." Merlin shrugged again, his face betraying amusement as Arthur sank down in his seat, his face flushed, and embarrassment and shame coursing through him.

  
"So did Morgana tell you—?"

  
"That she walked in on you—? Yeah. She called me that night and told me."

  
"I can't believe  _all of them_  would betray me like this." Arthur groaned, shaking his head.

  
"It's not all bad. I mean, if they hadn't told me, I might never have picked up on it, and we might not have just..." Merlin trailed off suggestively.

  
Arthur couldn't help but grin in response; they hadn't done anything that would warrant that much too sexy look on Merlin's face, much to Arthur's dismay, just... a lot of petting. And it had been just as amazing as Arthur always thought it would be—especially considering what Merlin had been wearing, what he was  _still_  wearing, because neither of them had actually wanted to get dressed quite yet, for obvious reasons.

  
But still, sitting at their kitchen table,  _casually talking_ about the thing Arthur had spent around a year trying to hide from Merlin... Arthur wasn't quite sure if he was embarrassed or turned on—he seemed to be in that not-sure state quite a bit, actually.  _Especially_  around Merlin.

  
"So you know everything, then?" Arthur asked.

  
"Pretty much."

  
"So, erm," Arthur tapped his fingers nervously against his cup. "Where do we—"

  
"—Go from here?"

  
"Yeah."

  
Merlin gave him a look, contemplative and suggestive. "Where do you  _want_  to go?"

  
"A few months ago," Arthur sighed. "I would have just bent you over this table and we would have been done with it. But now..." He shook his head, almost disappointed with himself, and confused, more than anything, because when in the  _hell_  had he gone from just wanting to screw him senseless—like, in the most platonic way possible—to... wanting  _more?_  Like, when, in all those times he thought about Merlin in such ways, snuck glances at him,  _pined_  over him, had he gone from wanting to sex to wanting  _something else?_

  
"... You  _don't_  want to bend me over the table anymore?"

  
"No, I still do." Arthur assured him quickly. "But... I also kind of want to take you out to dinner tonight and  _then_  come back and maybe bend you over the table?"

  
"Are you asking me on a date or asking me to have sex with you?"

  
"Both." Because  _fuck it_ , he was already this far gone, might as well lay all his cards out there. With everything else Merlin already seemed to know about him... well, if that hadn't changed the way he looked at him, Arthur wasn't sure what would.

  
"Then yes. To both. Well," He added. "To dinner, anyway. Not so sure about the table thing yet—isn't that a bit...  _unsanitary?"_

  
Arthur laughed and shook his head. He  _might not_  have to kill his sister and best friend—and Gwaine—after all. Especially since their betrayal had pretty much scored him a date with Merlin, but then...

  
"Wait a second." Arthur said suddenly. "That doesn't actually explain where all my boxers are or why you're wearing mine right now." He narrowed his eyes as Merlin coughed awkwardly.

  
"Well." He shrugged after a moment, taking a sip of his tea. "It's not like you were actually doing anything about...  _anything_ , so I... took it upon myself."

  
As realization set it, Arthur laughed again. "Did you... did you  _really_  steal my... just so..."

_  
"Hey,"_  Merlin said indignantly. "At least no one  _I_  know walked in on me—"

  
"All right, all right, fair enough." Arthur relented.

  
"And when I came in a few months back about my, erm," Merlin added quickly as he nodded down at what Arthur was wearing, fueled by something that painted his cheeks red. "Yeah. I was... sort of...  _testing_  you? But... you didn't really... take the bait, I guess you could say?"

  
"Wait a second, are you telling me that these are not, in fact, your lucky underwear?" Arthur asked, feigning outrage and surprise. He  _fucking knew_  that people didn't actually have  _lucky_  underwear.

  
"Well, I didn't  _think_ they were, but, after today..."

  
"No, after today, they're  _mine."_  Arthur all but growled at him.

  
"They don't even fit you right."

  
"No, I think they fit me  _just fine,_ thank you very much."

  
"I don't think so."

  
"Tell you what," Arthur grinned. "You can have them back... when you tear them off me. With your  _teeth."_

  
"Do no tempt me, Pendragon, or  _you_  might be the one bent over this table before we even have a  _chance_  to get dinner."

  
"I think I like my odds, actually." Arthur teased, leaning back, triumphantly, and taking a long sip of his tea as Merlin rolled his eyes and started in on his breakfast.

  
Arthur wasn't actually sure if he was supposed to tell Gwaine, Leon, and Morgana  _thank you_  for running to Merlin with his secret like that, or if he was supposed to be pissed off at them. But then, he decided, maybe he just wouldn't mention it to them at all, and would wait to see how long it would take them to come around and spill to him themselves.

  
Yeah, that was about as likely as him going to Merlin with his little  _problem_  had been all those months ago when the whole damn thing had started.

  
But maybe, all those months... maybe they had been  _worth it._

  
*

  
A few months after Arthur found out Merlin  _knew_  about him and his little...  _obsession_  or  _kink_  or  _whatever_  it was—he could never settle on quite the right word to describe it—Arthur was no longer allowed to say they were only flatmates. Merlin actually forbade it, threatened to start wearing his jeans around the flat more often if Arthur didn't cut it out—because they were not allowed to do what they did, feel the way they  _felt_ , proclaim that they felt that way, and still only call each other flat-mates and  _friends_ and nothing more. It simply was not allowed, according to Merlin.

  
And, the first time Merlin called him his  _boyfriend_  when introducing him to some friend of his... Well. Arthur couldn't exactly say he minded it in the least.

  
*

 

* * *

 


End file.
